President Barack Obama takes responsibility for Affordable Care Act website glitches as he defends the law in Boston speech

I'm confident the marketplaces will work, because Massachusetts has shown the model works.- Barack Obama

BOSTON — In a major speech on health care delivered at Faneuil Hall on Wednesday, President Barack Obama touted the benefits of national health care reform, even as he acknowledged the difficulties that have plagued its rollout.

One major problem with the Affordable Care Act implementation came when the federal website that oversees new health care exchanges for several states was unable to handle the large volume of traffic. The Associated Press also reported that there may be security concerns with the new website due to a lack of testing.

Obama, in a 35-minute speech to around 800 invited guests, took responsibility for the problems. “There’s no denying right now the website is too slow, too many people have gotten stuck, and I’m not happy about it,” Obama said. “And neither are a lot of Americans who need health care, and they’re trying to figure out how they can sign up as quickly as possible. There’s no excuse for it, and I take full responsibility for making sure it gets fixed ASAP. We are working overtime to improve it every single day.”

In the meantime, Obama said, people can still apply for coverage over the phone, by mail or in person. “You’re still able to get affordable, reliable health insurance that’s been out of reach for too many people for too long,” he said.

Obama visited Faneuil Hall – where Republican Gov. Mitt Romney signed Massachusetts’ health care overhaul into law into 2006 – to point to lessons he hopes the country will take from the Massachusetts reform. The speech came as Obama is facing significant criticism over the law’s implementation.

Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, speaking before Obama, said Massachusetts also had website problems when its Health Connector first opened, but those problems were fixed. “The website glitches are inconvenient and annoying,” Patrick said. “They must be fixed and I am confident they will be.”

But, Patrick said, “Health reform in Massachusetts, like the Affordable Care Act, is not a website; it’s a values statement.”

In urging the public to be patient, Obama pointed to figures indicating that only 123 premium-paying customers signed up for the Massachusetts exchange in the first month. (That does not include people who were automatically transferred from existing plans or could sign up for free.) “Enrollment was extremely slow,” Obama said. By the end of the 2007 enrollment period, he said, 36,000 people had signed up.

Ultimately, in Massachusetts, Obama said, the number of employers offering insurance increased, individuals were no longer left without coverage and health care costs tracked with costs in other states. “All the parade of horrible, the worst predictions about health care reform in Massachusetts never came true,” Obama said. “They’re the same arguments you’re hearing now.”

Ultimately, Obama said, “I’m confident the marketplaces will work, because Massachusetts has shown the model works.” Obama said competition in the new marketplaces so far has helped keep costs lower than projected.

Another challenge for the president came Tuesday, when NBC reported that 50 to 75 percent of the approximately 14 million Americans who buy individual health insurance policies will have their current policies cancelled because they do not conform with the standards required by the Affordable Care Act, and the policies that will replace them will often be more expensive. Obama previously had pledged that individuals who like their health insurance can keep it.

Obama said the cancellations affect the approximately 5 percent of Americans who have “cut rate plans that don’t offer real financial protection in the event of serious illness or accident.” Anyone who had a plan that has been unchanged since 2010 may keep it. But, Obama said, “Ever since the law was passed, if insurers decided to downgrade or cancel substandard plans, we said under the law, you have to replace it with quality, comprehensive coverage.”

Obama said those who have their plans cancelled will be able to buy a plan with better benefits and more protections. Due to increased competition as well as the availability of tax credits for some individuals, he predicted that many people will be able to buy a better plan for less money. “If you’re getting one of these letters, just shop around in the new marketplace,” Obama said.

Weeks after the federal government shut down due to a debate over delaying funding for the Affordable Care Act, Obama pointed to the bipartisanship that existed in Massachusetts, when Democratic U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy and legislative Democrats worked with Romney on health care reform.

If congressional Republicans worked with Democrats as Romney did in Massachusetts, Obama said, “We’d be a lot further along.”

Obama vowed to continue implementing the law. “It’s no surprise some of the same folks trying to scare people now are the same folks who were trying to sink the Affordable Care Act from the beginning,” Obama said.

Romney, before the speech, rebutted Obama’s claim that Massachusetts should be a template for the nation. “In the years since the Massachusetts health care law went into effect nothing has changed my view that a plan crafted to fit the unique circumstances of a single state should not be grafted onto the entire country,” Romney said in a statement. “Beyond that, had President Obama actually learned the lessons of Massachusetts health care, millions of Americans would not lose the insurance they were promised they could keep, millions more would not see their premiums skyrocket, and the installation of the program would not have been a frustrating embarrassment.”

Romney said health reform should be crafted by the state with bipartisan support and input from employers, without raising taxes “and by carefully phasing it in to avoid the type of disruptions we are seeing nationally.”

Obama was heckled twice by activists protesting the Keystone XL oil pipeline, who were quickly escorted out by security.

Outside Faneuil Hall, views were mixed as to the president’s health care reform. Brian Foley, a project manager for a staffing company and independent voter from Mansfield, held a sign reading “O’Liar,” filling the O with Obama’s campaign symbol. “Obama did this whirlwind tour selling Obamacare. Everyone was told if you like your plan you can keep it, if you like your doctor, you can keep it. It was absolutely not true,” Foley said.

“He’s trying to sell a failing law,” Foley said.

Joanne Kelley, a retiree and Democrat from Boston, said her daughter, who lives in California, was uninsured for a couple of years after losing her job, and just bought an insurance plan under the new health insurance exchange. “Now she signed up, she’ll have affordable coverage,” Kelley said. “It’s personal for me.”

Obama made an unscheduled to stop to see a new statue of retired basketball great Bill Russell, which is scheduled to be unveiled Friday at Boston City Hall. He is also scheduled to speak at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser at the Weston home of Susan and Alan Solomont.